by Ruth Reichl
Finally I called Mrs. Cloverly, to tell her I would no longer be fulfilling the Delicious! Guarantee. Unfortunately, she was so intent on telling me about some vile English-muffin recipe the magazine had run back in the sixties that I wasn’t sure she’d understood.
“But why would you bother making homemade English muffins?” I asked, giving in.
“Isn’t that obvious, dear? They cost far less than store-bought. And since somebody was kind enough to give me English-muffin molds for my birthday, I could hardly let them go to waste.”
“People must consider you quite the cook.”
I smiled as I said it, but the joke flew right over her head. “People were always giving me cooking utensils.” She was in dead earnest. “Mostly I took them back—who needs all that nonsense?—and I built up quite a credit at the Cleveland Cookshop. Unfortunately, I still had it when they closed. Very annoying, I must say. But that’s neither here nor there. We were discussing muffins. I just wish you could taste them.”
“Well,” I said, thinking that this might be one way to make her understand that I was leaving Delicious!, “that’s not impossible. Now that I don’t have a job, I’m planning a trip to Akron.”
“Cleveland is so close! You must come visit.” Was she willfully refusing to hear me? “In fact, you could stay with me. Why pay for a hotel?”
I hastily declined her invitation; I had always imagined her house as a double-wide in a trailer park, stuffed with a large collection of miniature ceramic birds. “At least come to tea,” she urged, giving me her address. “I promise not to make you eat these vile muffins.”
I promised. Then I hung up and began to empty my desk. By the time the man from HR showed up, I was deleting the last files on my computer.
“Got everything?” He was younger than I’d expected, tired-looking, in a badly fitting suit.
I pointed to the small cardboard box. “Not much to get. I haven’t exactly made this home.”
He pulled out a form and began to ask perfunctory questions about why I was leaving the job. When he was finished, he nervously jingled the change in his pocket. “I’m supposed to escort you out the door.”
“Do you mind waiting a minute? I’d like to take a last look.”
He gave his lips an anxious lick. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to let you.”
“Oh, come on. I’ll only be a couple minutes.”
He seemed troubled, but at last he nodded. “I’ll wait downstairs. Don’t take too long.”
I walked up the stairs, remembering that first morning when Jake and Sherman had stood waiting for me on the landing, mourning again the passing of that lovely dog. He’d been my first friend at Delicious! In the old photo studio, I had a memory of Maggie sending me off on that wild-anchovy chase. Passing through the kitchen, I could almost hear Diana’s voice. “Gingerbread Girl … Maggie thinks you’re wasting our time. But what you’re really wasting is your talent.”
Her words stayed with me as I climbed the stairs again, and they were still with me as I walked through the empty art department.
Then I was at the library. The reassuring apple scent engulfed me, and I flashed on the first time Sammy and I had come through this door. We were unaware that the room was crowded with ghosts who were about to propel us into the present and force us to face the future.
I flicked the switch and watched the soft golden light spread across the shelves. Savoring the deep calm, I sat down on a soft suede armchair and picked up one of the books piled onto the long library tables. I got up and went to the card catalog, laid my cheek on the rough wooden surface, and pulled a drawer open just to hear its deep, almost human sigh. I gazed at the colors, grateful to the benign librarians who had nurtured my friendship with Sammy. I hoped Anne would be able to rescue them from whatever lonely fate the Pickwicks had planned.
I moved on to the zodiac desk, thinking of the day Richard had spread his photographs across its fantastic surface. Seeing his pictures for the first time, I’d been awed by his ability to find beauty buried in the grotesque. But, more than that, Richard had made me understand that sight is not a gift but an act of will.
I made a final pilgrimage to Anzio, turned on the lightbulb, and looked up at all those crumbling files. I remembered how safe I’d felt waking up here with Mitch, and then an avalanche of memories came tumbling down. Sammy telling me about his mother’s war. Richard’s fury about his nonna and how she’d lost her house. The Murrow broadcast, “Orchestrated Hell.” And the day I introduced Sammy to Genie … and began to let her go.
“Thanks, Lulu.” I said it out loud, feeling foolish. And then I said it again. “Thanks for everything.” I ducked out of Anzio, slid the bookcase back against the wall, and left the Timbers Mansion for the last time.
Book Three
Appetites
MITCH’S PLACE WASN’T FAR FROM MINE, BUT IT WAS IN AN ODDLY hidden pocket of the city where the Lower East Side collided with Chinatown, and I’d never been there before.
“Take the F to East Broadway,” he’d texted. I emerged from the subway to find myself on a wide, heavily trafficked street dense with trucks careening off the Manhattan Bridge. On one side of the street, children played in the park; on the other side, pedestrians pushed past one another, hurrying home, trying to beat the dark. Grocery stores with crisp roast ducks hanging in the windows stood next to coffee boutiques and shops filled with pungent barrels of exotic pickles.
“Text me when you get to the paint store,” he’d said. “I’m next door. I’ll come down and let you in.”
I’d expected something old and gracious, but this building was shiny-new. Mitch was waiting near the lobby door. He hustled me inside, put his arms around me, nuzzled my neck. “I’m glad you’re here. I was afraid you’d change your mind, but you’re actually early.” Arms still around me, he led me into a tiny self-service elevator.
“I quit my job!”
“I thought you would,” he replied evenly. I glanced at him, disappointed; I’d expected more of a reaction.
He seemed to sense my mood. “You said you had to go find Lulu.” He rubbed his soft beard against my cheek. “How could you do that and keep the job? Push two.”
When the elevator door slid open, we were right inside his apartment, which gave me an immediate impression of space and light. Then I saw that it was not an apartment but a long, spare, high-ceilinged loft with windows on both ends stretching from floor to ceiling. Cabinets made of a soft butterscotch-colored wood ran down one entire wall. The other wall was white, which made the red sofa against it very bright and the geometric coffee table very black. In the middle of the room, there was a table made of the same butterscotch wood, a rectangular white island with two sinks, and a large old-fashioned high-backed black-and-white enamel stove with two ovens, four burners, and a grill.
I walked to the windows on the east end and looked down at the park across the street. A man was pushing two children on the swings, sending them higher and higher. Mitch took my hand. “Come.” He led me to the other side of the loft. As we got closer, I could see that the floor ended in a spiral stairway. The window at this end stretched down another story, all the way to the ground. In the late-afternoon light, the space was spectacular, all air and sunlight, open to the garden just outside. I could make out grass and trees, and something in the middle. A bench, maybe?
“It’s not what I expected.”
“You thought I’d have an old house, right?” Mitch kicked off his shoes, and I saw that his socks were unmatched; one turquoise, the other purple. I smiled. “Well, I used to. I bought a run-down old Victorian in Brooklyn right out of college, when you could get them in Fort Greene for practically nothing. I worked on it for years. It was an Eastlake, actually.”
“Like the lock?” I was glad I’d remembered.
“Yes! The house was always nagging at me about some detail that needed fixing, and somehow I kept doing more and more. Then a client saw it and fell in love. Made me an o
ffer I couldn’t refuse. He wanted everything—not only the furniture but the art and the plates. Everything. I wasn’t looking to sell, but …” He ran his hand up my arm. “At first I was kind of depressed, but then I realized that he’d offered me a kind of freedom. You have no idea what a relief it is to come home and do nothing. C’mon, I’ll take you downstairs.”
I followed him down the spiral staircase. The wall behind it was painted deep green and filled with framed pictures and drawings. Most were of buildings, although here and there a photograph showed a large family skiing or boating. In one picture they were sitting outdoors at a picnic table. In another they were all standing in front of Notre Dame in Paris. I went closer to look at the most recent photograph; the father resembled Mitch so much that I had the strange impression of looking thirty years into the future.
“Big family,” I said.
“Yeah.” There was something guarded in his voice, an I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it quality, and he tugged on my hand, pulling me down to the bottom of the stairs. The bedroom was half the length of the loft, but the enormous window made it feel open, spacious. I stopped to stare into the garden, and he came and wrapped his arms around me, nestling my back against his chest. “It’s so beautiful. Like being outside.”
He tightened his arms. “At night I lie here and look at the stars. Sometimes I wish there was a fireplace, but you can’t have everything.”
The bedroom was very different from the stark modern loft upstairs. Everywhere I looked, my eye fell on an unusual object. An antique wooden angel, obviously rescued from a church, hung over our heads, blowing a trumpet. A metal MEN WORKING AHEAD sign stood below the stairway, the ludicrously proportioned man pointing upward with a fat finger. And two worn marble pillars—holding up nothing—flanked the doorway to what I assumed must be the bathroom.
The bed facing the window was a high platform covered with a worn Indian star quilt, the colors gently faded. Mitch plunked himself onto the bed and reached beneath it. “And now for the major attraction.” A small prickle of fear ran down my back. Was this going to be something weird? He pulled out a drawer. A light came on, and I felt a rush of cool air.
“You have refrigerated drawers in your bed?”
Mitch gave me a grin you’d get from a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “It’s such a drag to go all the way upstairs when you’re hit with a midnight craving for ice cream.”
“That may be the most decadent thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You”—he drew me down onto the bed—“have clearly led a very sheltered life. You have a lot to learn about decadence.”
“And you’re going to teach me?”
“I intend to try.”
Neither of us said anything for quite a while.
I woke with the moon shining through the huge window. Mitch had pushed back the star quilt, and the sheets felt smooth beneath my legs. I turned my head; he was watching me.
“I hope dinner’s not ruined.” He reached out and ran his hand across my face, touching my forehead, my cheeks, my chin.
“No worries.” I stretched, languidly content. “We can always eat ice cream.”
“Absolutely not. I invited you for dinner. And dinner you shall have.”
“I’m not hungry.” My appetite had vanished so completely that I couldn’t remember how hunger felt or imagine ever experiencing it again.
“Well, I am starving.” He began to climb out of bed, and I reached for him, unwilling to let him leave. He bent to kiss me and I tugged him down again. “Don’t go.” His body, when he twined his legs with mine, felt like liquid mercury.
The next thing I remember him saying is, “Now I’m really starving.” He got up and pulled on a pair of shorts. “I need sustenance. You stay here; I’ll bring you dinner in bed.”
He padded up the stairs, and after a few minutes I heard the hiss of meat hitting a grill; the scent of charring beef wafted down the stairs. I sniffed, thinking he must have put the potatoes in to bake before I arrived; I could smell the sweet earthy scent of the crisped skins. I heard a bottle being uncorked and then the sound of liquid hitting glass.
Mitch came downstairs, bringing with him the clean scent of the vinegar he’d been mixing into the salad. He handed me a wineglass, its deep crystal bowl filled with a dark, almost black liquid.
“I bought these glasses for the old house. This is the last remaining pair.” He took a sip. “But this wine deserves them. Hugh Johnson calls Hermitage ‘the manliest wine of France.’ ”
I leaned into the glass, inhaling the intoxicating scent, all violets and leather. I could feel him watching me as I took the first sip, rolling the rich wine around in my mouth.
He went back upstairs then and returned carrying a wooden platter perched precariously on top of a teak salad bowl. On the platter were the baked potatoes and an enormous steak.
“One of Benny’s?”
“Sal’s got me well trained.” He began to carve. “I wouldn’t dare buy meat anywhere else.” He picked up a thin slice and fed it to me. The meat was rare and tender, with a metallic tang, and I thought it was impossible to imagine a sexier meal. We didn’t eat much.
I woke up again to find Mitch lying next to me with a bowl of ice cream balanced on his chest. “My idea of heaven,” he said. “Coffee ice cream and a beautiful woman in the middle of the night. What more could a man want?” When he kissed me, I tasted coffee and sugar, and when he touched me, his fingers were still cold. “In the morning”—he rolled onto my side of the bed—“we’ll take a bath.”
“You have a tub big enough for both of us?”
“It’s one of those old porcelain monsters with lion-foot legs. I took it from my parents’ house when they had their bathroom redone. They were going to throw it out.” He said this as if he’d prevented a terrible crime from taking place.
“They don’t like old things?”
“Not really. They believe in constant upgrades. They’d especially like to upgrade me.”
“But you resist?”
“Always have. I’m the youngest of four brothers, and my parents had already done a great job with Bruce, Bill, and Bryan. They’re all architects like Dad. They expected me to go into the family business. But I lacked the most important requirement.”
“And that is …?”
“The desire to make your mark upon the earth. You need that if you’re going to be an architect. I, on the other hand, believe in preserving what’s already here.”
“So you were the black sheep in the family?”
I said it lightly, but I could feel his body stiffen.
“Huge disappointment. But it was almost like they always knew I would be. Mother’s name is Betty, and my father’s Boyd.”
“And your brothers all have ‘B’ names.”
“You got it. I’m an ‘M’ in a ‘B’ family. They named me Bernard Mitchell, but nobody’s ever called me anything but Mitch. Thank God! I’d hate to be Bernie, but as far as my family’s concerned, I’ve always been a little off.”
It did not seem the moment to point out that he was with another “B.”
“They all work for Boyd Hammond Associates. They all live within fifty miles of one another. And they all married thin blond women who look so much like Amy I can hardly tell them apart.”
“Amy is married to …”
“Bryan. Valerie and Karen are just like her. Enough about me. Your turn.”
I could feel my muscles tense. I didn’t want to talk about Genie; it was too soon. But I didn’t have to go there, because he continued, “What I really want to know is how you ended up at Fontanari’s. I never could figure that one out.”
It was the perfect question; I was relieved. I told him about the Sal Test, which made him laugh until he was wiping his eyes. “They did that to Jake’s assistants for eight years? That’s insane! But I can just imagine Sal’s face when he let someone get away. I bet it ruined his day.”
“Are you crazy? It would
have ruined his week, at the very least.”
“You’re right.” He reached out and stroked my hair. “Has he seen your haircut?”
“It’s only been four days!”
“So what? He’s going to be jealous that I saw you first.”
“No. He’s not.” It was the closest I’d come to acknowledging that this was—might be?—a relationship, and that wasn’t lost on Mitch. He pulled me in to his chest so we were nestled like spoons.
“You mean,” he was whispering into my ear now, “that he’ll be happy to see us together?”
I didn’t say anything, but he felt my head nod against him, and he moved closer until it was hard to tell where my body ended and his began. I fell asleep again. We were cautiously revealing ourselves to each other, and my last conscious thought was this: I’m happy.
The next time I opened my eyes, light was creeping into the room, the rising sun reflecting off distant skyscrapers. I closed them quickly, afraid of morning, worried that once we left the safety of the bed, we’d lose the hard-won closeness of the night.
But Mitch leapt up, stretching luxuriously, his entire body radiating joy. “I’ll draw us a bath.” He disappeared between the absurd marble columns, and I could hear him humming as water splashed into the tub.
When I followed him, I saw that the tub was huge, the lion feet planted right in front of the window. In the daylight I could see an old moss-covered stone fountain in the middle of the garden. “I bought that in Florence.” Mitch turned off the taps, and water stopped hissing into the tub. He tossed in a handful of salts, sending the scent of orange and clove soaring through the room. It was not the sort of thing I imagined he’d have bought himself, and I wondered about the woman who’d left them here.
“These were Emma’s.” It was if he’d read my mind. “She’s been gone for quite a while.”
I lowered myself into the water. It was hot, fragrant, wonderful. I could feel my hair begin to frizz a bit in the steam, and I ducked under the water. When I surfaced, he was walking out the door. “Aren’t you coming in?”